Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023
Section 148, BNSS: Dispersal of assembly by use of civil force
Section 148 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, in the Act's own words, with the CrPC provision it replaces.
What it replaces
| BNSS provision | CrPC provision | Relation |
|---|---|---|
| Section 148 | Section 129 | corresponds |
From the Bureau of Police Research and Development's official comparison summary (source below). The whole table: CrPC to BNSS.
The section
148. Dispersal of assembly by use of civil force.
(1) Any Executive Magistrate or officer in charge of a police station or, in the absence of such officer in charge, any police officer, not below the rank of a sub-inspector, may command any unlawful assembly, or any assembly of five or more persons likely to cause a disturbance of the public peace, to disperse; and it shall thereupon be the duty of the members of such assembly to disperse accordingly. (2) If, upon being so commanded, any such assembly does not disperse, or if, without being so commanded, it conducts itself in such a manner as to show a determination not to disperse, any Executive Magistrate or police officer referred to in sub-section (1), may proceed to disperse such assembly by force, and may require the assistance of any person, not being an officer or member of the armed forces and acting as such, for the purpose of dispersing such assembly, and, if necessary, arresting and confining the persons who form part of it, in order to disperse such assembly or that they may be punished according to law.The text is India Code's consolidated text as loaded into Pundora's statute corpus on 1 September 2026. A section quoted in a draft checked by Pundora is checked against this text.
Sources
- India Code: Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, section 148 (read 1 September 2026)
- Bureau of Police Research and Development: comparison summary, BNSS to CrPC (read 1 September 2026)